Secrets
by zenintheart
Summary: Every teenager has secrets, these were theirs.


Title: Secrets

Summary: Every teenager has secrets, these were theirs.

Author's Note: I know I haven't posted in awhile, sorry. Life can be pretty crazy. Anyway, this is my newest story (I'm not sure where I'm going with my older ones) and I'm pretty excited to write it. Each chapter will be a different character based on your requests and it will be revealing one of their secrets. I will do multiple secrets per character if it is requested. Enough with this note, please enjoy and don't forget to review and submit requests.

Character: Alli Bhandari

To her friends she was sweet and bubbly, perhaps a bit too boy crazy, but a good friend nonetheless. She provided advice to Dave when he wanted to ask out the new girl Sadie. She covered for Clare when she had told her parents she would be staying at Alli's when she was really spending the night with her boyfriend. She was there with Jenna when she had found out she was pregnant and there for her again when she had given birth.

To people who hadn't spoken to her, Alli came off as self-centered, and a bit of a ditz, by looking at her bold and provocative clothing choices she was labeled a tease. Boys at school talked to her as though she was an object and she was never thought to be smart even though every class she took was advanced. None of the assumptions and judgements made by others were true, and her friends knew that. But her family was a different story.

The steady decline of her parent's trust had begun in freshman year. They had noticed how she spent more time on her apperarance every morning and spent hours talking to Clare about "hot boys". This puzzled her parents, Alliah had always been such an academically centered person. It was the only thing she did that pleased her parents.

She was never musically gifted like her brother, regardless of how many piano lessons her parents had bought for her and she wasn't good at swimming like her mother had been and wished for her daughter to be as well. She was smart and that was all.

When she had begun recieving a slow trail of B's, still above average in an honors class but worthless to her mother and father, she had nothing left. Her parents were no longer proud, bragging to their friends about their daughter's achievements. They began to hold her against her best friend Clare, asking what Clare had gotten on the same assignments Alli had done. And since Clare's grades were always substantiably higher, she felt inadequate, not only to her family but to her best friend. But she could never tell Clare this, it wasn't fair to make her feel bad for being smarter, so she didn't.

Her parents soon became overbearingly strict, no grades less than an A-, going to mosque everyday and no makeup or flashy clothing. These were her parents solutions in their combat against her growing up. It was unfair, her brother had none of the same restrictions she did and none of the expectations. He was allowed to be in a band, hang out with his friends, wear what he wanted and play football. She resented him for it.

Her resentment towards her brother led to a fight between the two nearly every night and every time her parents caught wind of the conflict, it was Alli who was blamed. In most cases she had started it, perhaps subconsciencely. If Sav ate the last slice of bread or did some other inconsequential thing, she would pick a fight. Her anger and jealously towards her brother came out uncontrollably.

But he was still her big brother and she loved him. He looked out for her and only had her best interests at heart, so it broke hers when one day he screamed at her "How would you feel if your sister was the newest school slut?"

Alli had locked herself in her bedroom and cried for hours. That was the day she had given up on her brother. He had been the only member of her family who she thought loved her for her and whom she was close to. They rarely spoke afterwards and were never as close again.

Her parents no longer looked at her adoringly, her brother no longer saw her as his sweet kid sister. None of her friends at school understood the amount of pressure she was put under every day. The rules for a Muslim girl were immense, don't show your body, don't stand out, your mind is all you're worth. She lived under all of these barriers and because she didn't have the freedom to find out what she wanted to pursue, she pursued nothing.

When she had gotten suspended due to her "I hate Holly J" facerange group and later called to the police station. Her parents broke, "I don't even know our daughter anymore!" she heard her mother yell one night after she had gone to bed.

They yelled at each other, they yelled at her and she yelled back. One night she shouted "I hate this family, I hate being Muslim!" her parents grew quiet and she realized what words had left her mouth. She retreated back to her bedroom and cried herself to sleep. There were no more arguments between the three.

She almost wished there were, when her parents screamed at her they were trying to knock sense into the daughter they believed was still there. The slow edging out of family activities without any fight meant they had given up. She was no longer woken up for family brunch or asked to join in on charity efforts sponsored by the mosque.

After her fight with Bianca and all of her secrets being exposed, she no longer had any potential. She was virtually dead to her parents and brother, the fewest amount of words exchanged between the family and her, the outcast.

She was dead living there and no one understood.

She needed to get away. So she did.


End file.
